Last year, with a roster full of first and second years, the women’s soccer team battled to fourth place at the national championships.
Now two weeks into the 2010 campaign the Gaels show little sign of slowing down. Riding home from a weekend trip in Toronto, the women could feel confident having captured wins on both Saturday and Sunday.
The victories propelled the women to a 4-0 record and an impressive 19-2 season goal differential. The weekend kicked off Saturday afternoon against the University of Toronto’s Varsity Blues.
The Gaels built up a three goal lead in the first half and locked down defensively in the second to end the game 3-0. Striker Jacqueline Tessier scored once again to follow up her five goal performance against Trent, pushing her to an OUA leading seven goals.
She expressed the reasons for her early season success gleefully.
“I’m just playing my game,” she said. “It is a complete team effort and I’m just having fun and enjoying playing soccer. It’s a good feeling to finally put some goals in the net and I hope to keep on doing it for the rest of the season.”
Sunday’s game against the Ryerson Rams proved slightly more exciting. Despite a 2-0 lead at the half, the Gaels allowed the Rams an answering goal to cut the lead to one. However, tensions were absolved with Brienna Shaw’s answering goal, putting the Gaels up by two for good.
Even though the Gaels experienced their first scratch of adversity, the game ended at a comfortable 3-1.
Head coach Dave McDowell felt that many elements have contributed to the team’s success, including two shutouts so far this season.
“We have been pretty solid defensively. Our wide play has been very good,” he said. “It’s an experienced group. We are offensively coming together as well, possession has been good, but we have a lot of games in a lot of days so it’s going to be tough [to keep winning].”
With almost no roster turn over from last year, the Gaels have a great advantage in team chemistry and experience. Tough losses in the OUA final and CIS tournament will no doubt remind the returning athletes how difficult success can be to attain.
“I think everything can be sharper and crisper and certainly [battling] for 90 minutes has been a focus,” said McDowell. “We played very well in parts and let down in others.”
McDowell emphasized a need to keep improving and work on their weaknesses.
“We have been lifting the throttle a bit when we go up by a few. We gave up a late goal [Sunday] which was needless, but we reacted well to it.”
Midfielder Jennifer Hutchinson said that players could do more talking to one another on the field.
“One thing we can improve is our communication,” she said. “Being more vocal on the field will improve our game.”
These tweaks will be very important for the long term ambitions of the Gaels.
“Even though we are a young team, we have very high expectations,” she said. “We made it to national championships last year and came fourth. This year we would like to build on last year’s strong results.”
The Gaels look to keep their streak against the Ottawa Gee-Gees, Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Richardson Stadium.
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